some really great and also boring stuff

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-anyway-



Leaving New Orleans we went to a place called Brookshire TX which, I believe, is a suburb of Houston. We stayed at Allie's grandmother and aunt's house. I met them for the first time despite me and allie dating for close to 7 years! They were fantastic people and it was great meeting/ learning about them. We went out to eat with her uncle, aunt and cousins to a mexican place that was super delish. We talked all night and then woke up with a short quiet period followed by large amounts of coffee (just how I like coffee) and then more talking. We had to make our hotel in Houston so we said goodbye and then headed out. We are going to visit her on Tuesday on our way to Austin.

We booked the wrong area of the city for our hotel. What I thought was a hip area (from a all too short research period) was actually just next to the FOURTH LARGEST SHOPPING MALL. Yes, that does mean that their are THREE more larger malls in america. I don't mean to be so harsh because it seemed like a good mall but thats the problem. Every mall is the same and this one was just a slightly large version. It's ok. we ate at Chili's and then watch Argentina destroy Mexico. I don't always love watching sports but for whatever reason it was a fun game to watch.

So today.... what a day.

the pictures below describe our day perfectly. We saw the space center in Houston so I thought that would be fun. I wish the ticket guy told us we were about 15 years to old for everything. We made it fun though. Oh, and before that, I went to an Argentinean cafe and got some delicious sandwich with some sort of sausage, mayo, chimmchurri (sp?) lettuce and tomato. GREAT. and Dippin' Dots..... oh dippin dots. They weren't as great as I rememmbered but they were still good.

we also went to Westheimer st. Good food, cool stores and a modest amount of parking. Their was a small, on-and-off storm but we got home safe. I find these blogs are so hard to write without sparing a molecule of detail, they take too much energy to write and I would imagine they are too boring for our 14 subscribers to read. So, read our vague blog, then compare with pictures because, at least in the last group of photo's case, the photos are crazy funky cool.

Hangin' with my friends and the deathstar

New Orleans

We are now, currently in Houston, but in blog time in New Orleans. I just want to go on record right off the bat that po' boys are horrible and gumbo is like a kiss from gods very own lips.
Our hotel was on a quieter street in the French Quarter. After settling in, we decided to walk around and search out some food. Walking less than three whole blocks from our secluded hotel, Bourbon St. was what I always though Mardi Gras would be like, But it was a thursday. We walked down the street with our respective drinks and just absorbed the area. We arrived at a supposedly good place for po' boys. I ordered the Hot Sausage Po' Boy and it was horrible. just horrible. I was scarred from then on. While planning this trip I would probably tell you that this new orleans sandwich was my most anticipated event on the entire trip! We went to bed.

We played suer tourist the next day and went to a bunch of tours. BUT WAIT! our breakfast was amazing! It was a crescent place on the border of the french quarter and what ever community is next to it. AMAZING. truly amazing. blah blah blah we did some stuff while still thinking about how good our breakfast was. We went to the pharmacy museum, the voodoo museum and did a haunted history tour of new orleans which was great. We learned a lot of cool stuff. Ill update later

we stayed in mississippi for one night. since we accidentally ended up with two cabins, allie and conor stayed in one and i stayed in the other.

i think we all had mixed feelings about the experience.
the cabins were adorable by day and kind of creepy by night.
it was as if david lynch's set designer had chosen the decorations for each cabin, including a faded painting of an owl above one fireplace.
at first it seemed an appropriate decoration, but once night fell, it was like the owl's eyes followed you wherever you went in the tiny, wood-paneled room.

not to mention the bat. there was a bat trapped in allie and conor's fireplace, which we found after we heard it chirping and then saw it stick it's weird little head out. in a flash, allie and i were moving stools in front of the grate and stuffing the openings with picnic blankets and plastic bags.

we all had trouble falling asleep in our respective cabins that night, with one cabin harboring a boisterous bat that was prisoner to the fireplace and the other where it was just me, and my wild imagination. i eventually convinced myself that, in all likelihood, my night probably wouldn't resemble any of the scenes from freddy vs. jason or cape fear, but it took some serious reasoning with myself. i think i need to stop watching so many horror movies.

when i awoke, mississippi no longer seemed like a horror film in the making, even though i was still by myself. i drove over to allie and conor's cabin and, puffy-eyed and barely awake still, we made breakfast. that morning we realized all over again that mississippi is quite beautiful in the daylight and could no longer understand why we had been so afraid once the sun set.

mississippi is quite beautiful, but also stark.

more pics to make up the delay

the day i finally get to graceland among other things

we go to a terrible continental breakfast at the heartbreak hotel restaurant called "the jungle room". Then we walk to graceland, or rather the ticket booth. we wait on line a long time, on many different lines, but I am too excited. I do a lot of pacing bouncing and foot tapping. we take a shuttle across the street to graceland. let me just say that mr. presley had a wonderful decorating sense. The actual jungle romm has green shag carpet on the floor and ceiling. The basement is all navy blue and bright yellow with a lightning bolt and an acronym "t.c.b.", or taking care of business, painted on the wall. He turned the shed in the backyard into a smoking room, for meats and things, and then later to a shooting room. we also get to see his famous gold suit. what a man... then we see his private jets and his car collection. after we take a tourist shuttle to sun studio, where we get another tour. they play tracks of original recordings and we stand in the exact place where rock and roll was born. after we get back on the shuttle and go to beale street where i have the most delicious hot dog ever. we walk around. we walk to family dollar, through an abandoned outdoor shopping mall. we walk back to the to the shuttle. back at the cabin we watch a john wayne movie and look up new orleans attractions. then we sleep.

memphis tn

Before getting to Memphis we stop at Loretta Lynn's Kitchen. The food was really bad but they have a cool bison statue out front. We get to Memphis after the tourist attractions are closed. We go directly to our cabin which is just a cute little thing in the rv park right behind heartbreak hotel which is right across from graceland. Sometimes pieces from Elvis songs drift toward our cabin porch, where we sit on the swing. For dinner we eat at Marlowe's, which is a barbecue place that offers free rides in a pink limo. Erin sleeps on the bottom bunk of the bunk bed and reads what is carved above her: "cabins rock like elvis!". Indeed they do.

ranch dressing

nashville...
a city of cowboy boots sales and cutesy street and store names, like "dogtopia" and "katy k's ranch dressing".

we visited a lot of vintage couture stores and drank plenty of beer today.

we ate at a place called demo's for breakfast. demo's covers everything in chili and calls is "mexican ____". mexican salad, mexican spagetti, mexican nachos.



what i've learned today in nashville:
1. there are THREE hank williams (hank williams sr., hank williams jr., hank williams III)
2. new belgium's lips of faith beer tastes like a glass of lemon juice. it's the most sour beer in existence. just drink vinegar straight up if you want to know what it tastes/smells like.
3. to patch up potholes in nashville, construction crews use cranes to smash in asphalt to the street. this leaves ample bumps and pieces of sticky asphalt everywhere. yay!

nashville day 2

we all wake up in staggered times. Once we are all ready we walk to get breakfast some place with overpriced foods and a waiter/waitress of ambiguous gender. We walk to the country music hall of fame. On the admissions line it seems that the standard question is "where are ya'll from?". We say new jersey and it seems the hostess has very little to say about new jersey or at least nothing nice. Behind us a couple says they are from upstate new york. The hostess asks if we came together. The couple behind us scoffs and quietly discusses the large numbers of traveling new jersians. Elvis' cadillac is pretty awesome. It turns out thats its pearlescent because of a ridiculous number of coatings of a diamond/ fish scale mixture. Also hank williams sr. who apparently was a hunter had a stuffed band of squirrels with tiny, squirrel-sized instruments. Then we take a cab to noshville, which is a new york-style deli or diner or something in Nashville. It has a miniature statue of liberty on top. We all feel a little wierd about it. Its too clean and friendly, like a diner if it was in a disney movie. Then we walk to coco's cafe which has beer and coffee and alot of people our age on laptops. Afterwards we take a cab back and walk around a little. I buy a davey crocket hat, with the little raccoon tail on back, at dolly parton's trinkets or treasures or something. Then we walk back to our swanky hotel and go to bed.

nashville photos